


Leave three X's and a Gift

by Tealot



Category: Boondock Saints RPF, The Walking Dead RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Love, Marie Laveau - Freeform, New Orleans, Norman Reedus RPF - Freeform, Other, Sadness, Unrequited Love, Vodou, Voodoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:10:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tealot/pseuds/Tealot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love and loss and the voodoo queen of New Orleans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave three X's and a Gift

**Author's Note:**

> fiction.

The dream didn't fade, didn't relinquish him slowly into his waking world.   
Rather it popped, a fragile bubble of freakish proportions, dumping him from the innocence of his past smack into the awkwardness of his present, peopled by a character so little changed that even its abruptness failed to fully convince him he was really awake.  
The taste in his mouth did that...the burn of listerine still failing to mask the bite of whiskey vomit that clung and lingered.  
He'd never know why he did these things to himself.  
Any of them.  
It was all just so fucking sad.  
The taste in his mouth...a millioin nights he'd never remember to regret, this always and forever his only hint that something had gone awry...gone amiss...gone WRONG dammit.  
That and the feel of the thumb in his forehead.   
Not gentle, no. Not this touch.  
Heavy. Deep, penetrating pressure right between his eyes.  
In anyone else it might have been painful....might have been a call to war, to bring them up swinging...  
In him...soothing.   
He knew this touch, recognized this drilling pressure that chased dizziness and held pain at bay.  
Church.   
Church. Why think Church?  
Church, silent as always, and he'd be sitting there, perched beside him with his thumb driving hard into his head...  
Except Church hated him.  
Church hated him and wouldn't piss on him to put him out if he was on fire. Wouldn't ameliorate his pain if his own life depended on it so why would he think Church?  
Because he was here.  
He sighed, swallowed faint, listerine and peppermint laced nausea, and reached up, wrapped cold fingers around a warm hand...pressing a digit directly between his eyes, as he'd known.  
Church.  
Blue shadow eyes blinked open onto crystal clear hazel green gold....Church's eyes. God he'd always loved Churchs eyes.  
They'd never looked real. Too bright, too clear, too browngreengold, flecks and shimmers and glitters lacing a serene, calm stillness that had never once failed to calm his soul.  
Or turn him on like a switch, and he felt it happening even now, now, when nothing in his world, life or body could have cared less.   
Automatic.  
Familiar as home. Easy as breathing.  
Church. So very, very unchanged.  
"I'm so sorry..."  
The words came out on a breath, seemingly of their own accord, no will or intent on his part, and while he was surprised at what came out of his own mouth, he fully expected what came out of Church's.  
"Yeah baby, you always are."  
There was nothing to say to that and he closed his eyes, feeling the relief of Churchs warm hand thawing his frozen fingers...always cold now, always....Churchs hand on his head chasing demons, the thumb pulled back now, replaced by his hand....a hand he grasped...in a gesture so familiar to them both it almost went unnoticed...and pressed against his left eye...the one that always hurt.  
He didn't expect conversation, beyond being told to get up and go on his way, and he braced, inwardly, for the rejection he knew he deserved.  
"You still sick?"  
His eyes opened at that, surprised at both the tone...gentle and concerned, almost loving...and the content, glancing down at himself as if looking for evidence.  
"I'm not sick."  
Lying, somewhat. He still was, just a little. Not enough to worry about, but how'd Church know?  
"Good."  
And then Church pulled his hand away, bringing a hiss of disappointment at the loss of the warmth, the comfort.  
"That eye still hurts, huh?"  
He stood up, headed for the dresser cum bar in the corner.  
"Quit looking at me like that. It wasn't hard to figure out. You were out like a light on my couch, and my bathrooms cleaner than it has been since I moved in. The bitch is GLEAMING and it reeks of listerine."  
"Maybe I just cleaned it."  
"I know you, remember?"  
He did, and too well at that. All his habits, all his patterns, how it all went with him.   
"I'm ok."  
"Good."  
And now what? Now that he'd come here...the last thing in the world he ever should have done. Inflicting himself on this man....a good man, who'd never done him wrong..never done anyone wrong....who'd finally managed to extract himself from the river of shit he'd brought him all those years ago...  
"Church, I'm sorry. I don't know why I went to you. I..."  
"Shut up."  
His words cut off at the tone, fighting the feel of exhausted, shameful tears behind his eyes as Church, once his friend, continued.  
"I know why you came to me, and it's why I'm even entertaining the notion of having you around. Because even you deserve that much."  
"I don't deserve anything from you."  
"No? What is it, then, Norman. What do you need? Even if you don't think you deserve it."  
"You to come back over here."  
He hadn't thought Church would oblige, shocked again as he crossed back to him, weight bringing the side of the couch down as he sat, that blessed hand, warm and carrying with it the scents of alcohol, bar soap and warm skin...Church's smell. Familiar. Like home...coming to rest again over his eye.   
His eyes, already tired and aching with grief, filled up as he saw not the hostile aquaintance Church had become, but his friend looking down at him...compassionate rather than angry, heard his voice...soft in the light.  
"We were friends once. And I loved her too. So, tonight...we can drink a little, and talk about her if you need to, and you can sleep some, if that works out for you, and you won't have to be alone. I get up at 8 for a 10am shift. Do us both a favor and be gone before I'm up"  
Still clasping that warm hand, he nodded....a wealth of guilt and regret flooding through him...for what he'd done to this man, yes, but that obnoxiously selfish part of him he hated through and through also clamoring at him to remember what he, himself, had lost.  
He pushed it down, shut it up. He hadn't lost half as much as he'd taken.  
He nodded in agreement.  
"I can do that."  
"Are you sure?"  
It'd been a valid question, and now...hours later, looking down at the sleeping form of his friend, leaving seemed to be the hardest, most impossible thing he'd ever have to do, and he found himself trying to justify staying.  
Replaying the night and molding events to fit some unspoken signal that the rule no longer applied.  
He knew he'd get away with it. He could go back to sleep and Church would wake him, scold him, and he'd apologize the way he always did...  
Disgusting. He was disgusting.  
He'd agreed to take himself away and that was what he needed to do.  
But so much had been said.   
There was so much he'd never known. Never even suspected, let alone understood. In the open, now, and how could he leave?  
Because he had to. Because he'd said he would.  
He reached out, brushed a gleam of silky gold out of his friends face, let it spill a little through his fingers.  
What had this night been?  
Mutual revelation? Or had it just been him using the guy again, the way, it seemed, he always had?  
Church had been so wrong about so much of that, but...even now, when something akin to reconcilliation may have come it was still really just him taking what he needed, wasn't it.  
He heard his thoughts awaken, tick into that weird audible mode they'd tried so hard to drug out of him. How though, when they were just his thoughts?  
May as well just stop him thinking.  
They started in on him now, as he watched this man he loved sleep, a harranguing chorus of self loathing and recrimination, a million warnings to just do what he'd said he'd do, get up and leave before he did any more damage.  
And the warring faction...the voices that argued back. What had he ever really done to hurt this man? What was he doing now? All he'd done was love him.   
He didn't feel himself tense as the argument raged in his head and beyond...as clearly audible as if there were a hundred people fighting in the room and bit back the insane....and it was, that was what this was and he knew it..insanity...urge to tell them to shut up before they woke Church.  
He'd remember it later, caught in the middle of it and spun out, raging and lost and not a bit sane...and tell himself that he'd been right, they really were in the room, because they'd really woken him up, but now...still there and still in the moment, his thoughts nothing but thoughts, he knew it was the tension in him that woke Church, the shift of his body on the edge of the bed, mood broadcast into the very air, same as it always was, always had been.  
His thoughts screamed at him to get out and in the silence of the room his friends eyes blinked open, stared up at him first in confusion, flitting through irritation to recognition and understanding.  
"What, Norman."  
A hand came up and caught the gently stroking fingers, pulled them out of his hair and down, let go.  
Pushed away.  
Don't touch me.  
Laughing a little, he nodded, understanding that no matter what he tried to tell himself, the screeching voices were right.  
No rules had changed. There had been no reconcilliation. There had been no forgiveness.   
"What're they yelling at you about?"  
He knew, he always knew.  
"I don't want to leave."  
"I know you don't. But you're going to."  
There was no question in it and he knew that, one way or another, he was going, and he could man up and just keep his word and go and leave this man in peace and they'd both make it out ok....they'd both be a little sad, and the day would be a bummer but they'd both be ok.  
Or he could argue...make a scene...give in to all this emotion, everything he'd had the chance to vent last night and hadn't, play the guilt card and tell him he'd offered to let him talk and now that he was ready he was going back on it. Could just melt down, let himself fall apart....  
And Church would just throw him out. The way he had at the bar last night, but this time there would be no key, no address, no second chance to just say what was on his mind for the sake of old love.   
It would just hurt them both even more.  
Nodding, he caught Churchs hand, fighting him a little for it.  
"Quit, I'm not gonna start anything."  
"You sure?"  
"Already was sure, got my shoes on and everything."  
His eyes fell closed as the hand pulled away, and he felt the shift in the bed as Church sat up.  
"I guess you do. What time is it?"  
"Six."  
"You weren't supposed to wake me up."  
"I didn't mean to."  
It was no whining, puling excuse. He really hadn't meant to. Had meant only to take one last look at him and go.  
"Yeah, I guess you can't help how loud your voices yell, can you."  
"You always sound like you can hear them."  
"I can."  
"So could she."  
"She could hear mine, too."  
It sat there, unspoken but ringing in the air just the same.  
Well, he'd go ahead and say it, then.  
"But I can't."  
"You never could. You've never been able to hear past yourself. It's the one thing that's always been so wrong with you. At least now you're trying."  
The hand he held shook away from his, and he let it go, steeling himself for the moment he'd have to stand up and walk away....this time for good, since there was no longer any reason for him to come here.  
"There's no getting it back, is there. Last night...it didn't change anything."  
"Do you mean are you forgiven? Are we friends again?"  
"I guess that's what I mean."  
"No. It didn't change anything."  
Nodding, knowing if he didn't leave now he'd cry and God he didn't want to, not now, not in front of him..didn't want to just prove one more time that he was a selfish...  
Fuck.  
"What you told me, last night...give it to Marie."  
"Yeah."  
"How? Just tell her?"  
"Just tell her. Take some chalk with you, and something special to you, to give to her. Something you love. Something you can't stand to give up. Go the grave, make three X's on it and leave your gift. And then tell her."  
"Does it work?"  
"Not if you go into it wondering does it work."  
Nodding, he stood up, pulled the key Church had given him from his pocket and started to set it on the dresser, shocked into immobility at Church's next words.  
"You keep that."  
"But.."  
"I didn't say use it."  
"Aw fuck, Church...."  
That pressure behind his eyes again, heavy and insistent, and in his throat...if he didn't get out he wasn't going to last and he knew it. He'd just dissolve and what a mess that would be for both of them.  
He shook it off, leaned forward, slipped a hand behind his friends head and pulled him in, surprised even as their lips touched that he was letting him...startled when he not only let him but kissed him back, long and lingering, years of sadness and love right here in this one moment.  
He pulled back a little, let their foreheads touch.  
"I miss you, Church."  
He felt Churchs hand touch his chest..not pushing but touching so lightly he couldn't stand it...and Church knew he couldn't stand it, knew he'd pull away from it.  
"I know you do."  
Nodding, he let him go, stood up, absently checking....keys, cigarettes, wallet, phone...eyes distant now, beginning the drift that would take him spinning, later, into the cyclone....and for the first time he hid it, turning his face away so this kind man wouldn't see it, wouldn't feel any sense of obligation or guilt.  
For the first time he could remember, he didn't feel it coming and use it.  
It wasn't Church's to deal with, it was his, and it was time to grow up.  
He let himself out with no more than a wave in Church's direction, stepping through the gate and into the streets of the quarter, shivering a little in the unexpected chill.  
New Orleans winters were colder than he ever gave them credit for, colder, maybe, less for the actual air temperature than for the absence of all of the things that made the city special...the drowsing scents of jasmine and sweet olive, the earthy, fishy smell of mud from the river, the sounds of music in the streets....  
Things he'd never loved...he didn't like this city and never had...but she had, and these missing things, things she'd loved, tore at him. They were gone and so was she, but they'd be back, come spring.   
She never would.  
She never would.

An hour later...and he'd had to jump the wall and christ knew he hoped he didn't end up in jail for trespassing.. found him standing in front of a tomb, crosshatched with the marks of thousands of supplicants....littered with cigarettes, candy, money, hair ribbons, photographs, toys, drinks, food....  
Gifts for Marie.  
Gifts for the voodoo queen of New Orleans, and what was he doing here?  
Did he really think this would work?  
He pulled something from his pocket, kept it clasped in his fingers as he chalked three X's on the side of the tomb, careful not to encroach on anyone elses marks.  
He did think it would work, KNEW it would work, knew it was already working, proof positive because he was standing here, now, not making a scene at Church's house. Proof would also come in the fact that he wouldn't be arrested for being in here.  
He didn't know how he knew, he just did.  
X's drawn, he dropped the chalk where he stood, ground it under his heel, some deep, visceral instinct telling him not to keep it and not to leave it for anyone else to touch.   
Stepping close, he let his fingers rest against the tomb...cold stone now, but in summer it would be too hot to touch, would give off the scent of dust, chalk and age....of magic.  
It was taking him, now....sadness and grief not so much welling as surging, and he let himself go, let it have him, imagining as he did that there were arms around him....hers, Church's, Jesse's...all of his lost ones.  
The last breath of cogency pulled his hand toward the tomb, opened his fingers and dropped his gift, the soft little pat of it landing amidst the pile of other offerings barely reaching him.  
If he'd wondered how to tell Marie, he didn't any longer. Everything just spilled out, let go...and with it every trace of will or control.  
The cyclone had him, now, and it would be hours before he'd emerge...shaken and spent with no idea , where he'd gone or what he'd done but knowing, somehow, that he didn't have anything to worry about...something sick inside him healed...some noisome sticker burr in his soul that made him take and take and take...excised...beginning here with something so simple as a man, alone in the early morning of a New Orleans winter day, crying..finally..on the ground in front of an unknown tomb dedicated to the voodoo queen of the city, fingers burning where they'd held his offering.  
The key to Church's house, wrapped with a lock of long, curled brown hair...the last things he had of either of them. The last things he'd ever have.  
Years and years later, when the city finally tired of what they saw as the endless and ongoing vandalism of that tomb, when they finally cleared away every offering, scrubbed away ever mark, repainted it and roped it off, he'd read about it and feel a little pang of regret...not only for everyone who wouldn't be able to tell Marie..who wouldn't be able to make three x's and leave a gift...but for that offering, the last things of the people he loved, lost into some mundane oblivion.

He didn't know...would never know...that Church had followed him that morning..and that while he'd waited for the gates to open, forsaking jumping the wall in favor of staying out of jail he'd still arrived in time to see him there, sitting on the ground with his head on his knees.  
Would never know how long and how hard Church had had to fight himself to not go over there and wrap his arms around him....hold him and tell him it was all ok, that he WAS forgiven, that maybe there really hadn't even been anything to forgive.  
Tell him he loved him, he always had, he always would.  
It'd been a hard fight, not easily won, and there had been a time or two that he'd started to give in, only to feel something hold him back. Something iron hard and stronger than his intentions, something he couldn't fight.   
He'd waited there until his friend left, stumbling, still crying, away from him, out the gate and down the street.   
Waited until he was gone for good.  
He'd approached the tomb, then, and seen what he'd left....felt a surge of love so strong it threatened to undo him, proud of the man his friend was, finally, becoming.  
He hadn't touched it.  
But years later, when the talk started about the city closing off the tomb, he'd gone back, wondering if that offering was still there, and had taken it.  
It meant too much to his friend to end up in a landfill, even if he never knew.  
Would never know.  
In the end it didnt' matter where it was, it still belonged to Marie.


End file.
